The prior art discloses a wide variety of designs for device that are used for damping vibrations. For example, a design conforming to this genre is described in the document DE 199 12 970 A1. This document discloses a device for damping vibrations with at least two damper parts that can be rotated counter to the resistance of at least one energy accumulator. Moreover, these damper parts have impingement areas for compressing the energy accumulator units. The energy accumulator units are constructed in the form of bow spring units—in particular, so-called helical compression springs—that are characterized by the fact that their extension in the longitudinal direction, which matches their extension in the circumferential direction, exhibits at least two different types of windings having different outside diameters—that is, a first larger outside diameter and a second smaller outside diameter. Conceivable are also designs with spring units that are arranged one inside the other. One of the rotatable damper parts forms an annular chamber and/or defines it at least partially in the circumferential direction. The energy accumulators are guided in said chamber in both the radial and also the axial direction. For this purpose the damper part that has the guide chamber is configured as a driver disk; and the other damper part is configured as a flange with drivers that are oriented in a radial direction and form the impingement areas for the energy accumulator units.
The use of bow springs makes it imperative to integrate, as described above, the stops, which form the abutment faces facing in the circumferential direction, either in the guide channel for the energy accumulators—that is, either formed directly on the respective structural elements during the shaping process; or these stop are connected as separate elements, which extend into the guide channel in a radial direction and are connected by riveting, for example to the corresponding damper part.
The design of the driver disk with an integrated stop is always used predominantly when a flange having a projection, which is oriented in an axial direction, is used as the input part of the device for damping vibrations. In order to then achieve an adequate abutment face even in the design with internal springs for such a stop, the driver disk is characterized by a complex geometry that is relatively time consuming to produce and, therefore, associated with high costs.
Furthermore, this type of stop can be achieved only on one side of the driver disk. However, the limiting factor with respect to the shaping is the limited deformability of the material used for this process. In the case of energy accumulator units consisting of springs that are arranged so as to be nested one inside the other, so that the external springs exhibit a large wire diameter, it is no longer possible to produce a correspondingly large abutment face for the internal spring. Therefore, it is necessary for designs of this type to use so-called end caps (that is, elements forming stop faces) that are guided in a moveable manner in the guide channel for the energy accumulator units, are supported on the damper parts and form a stop for the respective end region of the energy accumulator.
From a manufacturing viewpoint with respect to the integrated design, impressions can be provided only in the punch direction, so that this kind of stop is limited to variants with flanges that engage radially from the inside.
If for manufacturing reasons it is not possible to form the stops, forming the abutment faces, directly from the walls of the individual components, then it becomes necessary to use separate stop elements that are then usually connected to the driver disk, which in turn is generally connected to a multi-disk carrier of a shiftable clutch system on the drive side.
Other designs with a guide channel that is formed by a damper part, forming an input part of a damper arrangement, in the form of the driver disk are characterized by a stop that is riveted to said driver disk and that is arranged between the input part and the other damper part forming the output part. However, in this case it would be necessary to additionally stamp on the driver while simultaneously forming the respective stop regions, in order to be able to also take along the energy accumulator unit on two sides. That is, in the case of energy accumulator arrangements with springs that are nested one inside the other, the internal springs can be activated only to a limited extent by way of the abutment face. As a rule, this solution is then also expanded to include separate stop elements.